


Back Into Place

by Cosmic_Biscuit



Category: Avengers (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drama, F/F, Female Friendship, Female Relationships, Gen, Pre-Relationship, Resurrection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-07
Updated: 2013-04-07
Packaged: 2017-12-07 18:01:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/751404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cosmic_Biscuit/pseuds/Cosmic_Biscuit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's enviable, how easily she picks up like she never left off... or maybe not.</p><p>Another timeline in which Jan came back a different way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Back Into Place

She stares at the tube of swirling power, and it calls to her. It's been calling to her ever since she first sensed it, ever since she first found that cryptic message in a downed Kree ship.

"Open it."

The seal-like alien makes a chattering noise, pretending he can’t understand her, and Major Marvel’s last remaining thread of patience breaks. “ _Open it!_ ” she snaps, eyes glowing yellow in a clear threat as energy crackles around her fists. The alien squeaks and is suddenly much more willing to comply, quickly scooting over to the keypad to punch in the codes.

The glass part of the tube opens with a hissing noise, and the energy contained inside rushes out in a boiling storm. Marvel immediately makes contact, absorbing, redirecting, _stabilizing_ , until the cloud shrinks and forms and  finally blue energy figure patterned with light and shadows and stars stumbles into her arms.

Glowing eyes open, pale white pupils/irises shifting around to look at the room in confusion before focusing on her. “ _Carol?_ ” asks a blurred, distorted voice, sounding like it’s coming from every direction at once in a dozen different speeds. But it's still a _familiar_ voice; it’s _her_ voice, and Carol Danvers finally lets out a relieved sob that she’s been holding ever since she started hoping against hope that maybe, just _maybe_ -

Tears fall and are burned away almost immediately by the power they both radiate, but she doesn’t notice them, or the fact that the alien scientist has fled. There are a hundred thousand questions she wants to ask, a dozen apologies she wants to make, but none of them are important right then. All that matters is those eyes staring up at her in a daze and as she cradles the body close, holding on tightly to keep them both stable, she finally manages a smile.

“Hi, Jan.”

===

Carol’s always hated being on the outside looking in. Whether it was the Air Force, the superheroing, or life in general, she was always fighting, always moving, always trying to _prove_ something to everyone else or herself. Even at her best of times, she could never get rid of that uncomfortable little _itch_ in the back of her head that said she just didn’t _belong_.

Maybe that’s the reason she can’t help watching Jan with a little jealousy right now. It hasn’t even been a week since they returned to Earth, and the smaller woman is a veritable social whirlwind. Tearful reunions and apologies, interviews and board room fights to regain what she’d lost while legally dead; Jan is always moving, always centered. Even as she and Wanda are practically sobbing on each other as they pour out the regrets they’ve piled up, Jan doesn’t fall. As she cradles little William in her arms and tells Hank and Greer that she’s going to be the auntie who spoils him rotten, she’s still smiling. She punches Thor and Tony both in the arm and calls them idiots and forgives them both, and she’s _laughing_.

Even in her new form, Jan has mastered the art of social finesse. Fully human, fully energy, a skirt made of stars, or hair threaded with fire, she can already change at will, wearing her power as easily as any fine dress she’s made and altering it to her audience.

In a twisted sort of way, it’s almost like she never even died, even though they all know better. They all saw it happen, they all felt that empty void, they all _grieved_. But everyone else just seems relieved to have a little ray of bossy blue sunshine back in their lives.

And Carol…

Well, it’s driving Carol nuts.

She wants to shake the other woman, sometimes. ‘How do you do it?’ she wants to snap. ‘Just let it _roll off_ like that? Why can you do it when I couldn't? What’s the matter with you? Are you not feeling it anymore? Have you changed that much?’

But it’s too soon for fights, and so Carol keeps her mouth shut and lets it eat at her.

And then, one night as she flies by, she sees the familiar glow of a single studio at Van Dyne Designs lit up. It’s a sight she’d passed a hundred thousand nights without thinking about, and spent almost as many nights missing.

She hovers, hesitating, then changes course and heads for that glow, landing on the window ledge Jan had had installed specifically for aerial visits. The window is locked -Jan must not have picked back up the habit of leaving it open yet- but Carol has been so careful to never lose her key, and lets herself in easily.

She’s not sure what she was expecting to find, but dozens, maybe hundreds of crumpled up papers scattered all over the floor wasn’t it. Picking up a ball, she smooths it out and finds herself, in several outfits, all scribbled out. The next paper is of Wanda. Then Jen. Then Hank. Then Steve. Then more of her. Every single one x-ed or scribbled over in red or black pen.

Over a thousand drawings of costumes, all clearly tossed aside in frustration or, in some cases where they’re all the way across the room, even rage.

Carol bites her lip, then lays the last one she was looking at on the coffee table before approaching the drawing board where Jan is asleep, somehow nearly curled up in the fetal position on her stool. The sketchbook under her clutching hands is nearly out of paper, a smeared, rumpled, unfinished drawing of what she recognizes is Songbird, with a dozen design notes scribbled into the margins like all the others.

But one word stands out, scratched in decisive slashes of the pen rather than Jan’s usual flowing script.

‘ ** _POINTLESS_** ’

It’s suddenly a little hard to breathe as Carol leans over her friend’s shoulder to finish reading the page. 

She understands, now, how Jan has kept that happy face plastered on and kept herself everywhere at once for so long. It’s because, with everyone having moved on to new things, new costumes, new teams, new _lives_ without her… she has nothing else to do but _this_.

Carol swallows, and carefully pulls away. The linen closet is just the same as the last time she’d been here -even once he’d finally allowed himself to give up on bringing Jan back, Hank had never let anyone touch the studio. She's a little surprised to find a soft, fluffy blanket she'd given Jan as a Christmas present years before. She'd been embarrassed as hell, then, because even though the hand-stitched patterns had been pretty expensive by her standards, giving it to the girl who had everything...

And yet here it still was, in Jan's home away from home of sorts.

She bites her lip, then hugs it to her chest and closes the closet door before returning to the desk. As gently as possible, she wraps it around the sleeping woman’s shoulders, and backs up when Jan stirs. Then she stacks all the discarded drawings in as neat a pile as she can manage on the coffee table and slips out the window, locking it behind her.

‘Tomorrow,’ she tells herself. Tomorrow, she’ll ask Jan out to lunch, and ask her for a new dress. She has no idea where she'd even wear it, but she'll ask all the same, just to see Jan brighten up at actually being needed for something.

The thought comes to her suddenly, and leaves her smiling.

_'Maybe I'll ask for something blue and patterned in stars.'_


End file.
